County library embraces Dewey-less world

U-shaped alcoves with potted plants, comfy armchairs and oversize signage are a few of the additions at the newly reopened Sun City branch of the Maricopa County Library District.

But the most dramatic change is what's missing: Those once-ubiquitous spine numbers, indicating where a book falls within the Dewey decimal system, are nowhere to be found. Instead, books here are categorized, labeled and shelved using, well, words.

"They're definitely on the cutting edge," said Camila Alire, president of the American Library Association. "I think people are going to sit back and see what happens."

The Sun City branch is the latest addition to a group of county libraries - including Perry, Queen Creek, Robson and Goodyear - that have gone "Dewey-less" in the past two years in favor of what some say is a more user-friendly, browsable layout. The Guadalupe branch is next, and county officials plan for all 18 of the branches to make the switch eventually.

The idea of abandoning Dewey, once unthinkable by traditionalists, is gaining national traction partly because of the county's efforts. Although the library association does not keep an official record, it is widely agreed that the Perry branch in Gilbert was the first public library in the country to use a Dewey-less system.

Going 'Dewey-less'

The new system is the brainchild of Harry Courtright, director of the Maricopa County Library District. As a young librarian in Pennsylvania, he would daydream about alternative ways to classify books.

" 'Someday, I want to open a library that's completely Dewey-less,' " he recalls thinking. "It was kind of my thinking early on: 'There's got to be a better way to having books made available to people than having them in big stacks.' "

Courtright got his chance when he moved to Arizona about a decade ago. Surveys revealed that 75 percent to 85 percent of county library patrons did not visit the library for a specific item.

"It isn't like, 'I'm going to go get Book X today,' " Courtright said. "It's, 'I've finished this mystery, and now I'm going to get a new mystery.' "

Realizing that they were organizing the books "for the librarians, not the customers," Courtright proposed doing away with the Dewey decimal system in favor of topical "neighborhoods," much like one would find at a Barnes & Noble.

Some of the staff thought it was intriguing; others called him crazy.

Nevertheless, in 2007, the county's Perry branch in Gilbert was remodeled and reopened without Dewey.

Although developing a conversion plan for the system initially took nearly five years, county officials say it now only takes one to two months to make a library Dewey-less.

Usually, the process coincides with a larger renovation: Much of the relabeling is done by existing staff, and old furniture is reupholstered to keep costs to a minimum.

Long tradition

In the library world, they may as well have ripped a page from a Gutenberg Bible: The Dewey system has been around since 1876, when Melvil Dewey conjured up a numbercentric way to categorize all information into 10 broad classes and 1,000 subsections. Generations of schoolchildren have learned the system at some point in their lives - even if they only have vague recollections of pawing through a card catalog or hunting down a fiction book in the 813s.

What could have dethroned Dewey?

"Technology is driving this change to look at something different," Alire said. Software that allows non-Dewey access to books, already used by most bookstores, is now available to libraries, thus freeing them of the need for a rigorous numerical system to keep track of their holdings.

Still, the idea of going Dewey-less was met with much resistance - like "a slaying of a sacred cow," one librarian's blog declared.

The American Library Association has remained neutral on the Dewey debate.

"We don't know yet if it's going to be a trend," Alire said. "I think it's fine for libraries to experiment based on what their users say they want."

Public response

For the most part, the county's users have responded positively.

"It's just words instead of numbers," said Susan Varscsak, transitions coordinator for the district. "It's more like a bookstore, so it makes them a little more independent, which we think is a good thing."

Users can still look up books on computer terminals, which direct them to sections based primarily on keywords that bookstores usually use. (There are minor adaptations: The Sun City branch, for example, has a jigsaw-puzzle section and a room devoted to Arizona history and war titles.)

Non-fiction books are grouped under categories such as "Family & Relationships," "Health & Fitness," "Self-Help," while fiction titles are grouped alphabetically by genre and author.

"Here, you don't have to have a number. It's pretty straightforward," said Gary Adleman, 63, a Sun City resident who visits the library almost daily. Within a few minutes of browsing, he found a book on Vincent Van Gogh paintings he was seeking, in a clearly labeled "Art" section. "With the Dewey decimal, I think it's more time-consuming."

Courtright said an example of one new category that has been popular is "Weddings."

"If it was done by Dewey, the books having to do with food would be in cooking - 641.5 - flowers in a whole other place, and the books having to do with etiquette would be in the 300s," he said.

Other libraries

Officials at the Phoenix Public Library, the Valley's largest public-library network, say they have no plans in the near future to convert from the Dewey decimal system.

At 1.8 million items, its collection is substantially larger than Maricopa County's 800,000 items, and the Phoenix system relies on a standardized numerical system for the frequent shuttling of items among branches.

However, other public libraries around the country are now following suit, either by using Maricopa County as a working model or at least by daring to ditch Dewey for something else. Last fall, representatives from the Rangeview Library District in Colorado toured the county's converted libraries, and the representatives liked what they saw. The Rangeview district now plans to be the first in the country to fully convert to a Dewey-less organization.

"It's taking away a barrier that has been there in the past," said Rachel Fewell, collection-development manager for the district. "Is it really necessary to teach someone the translation step before we get them the material they're looking for?"

Does this mean the 133-year-old classification system is going the way of the card catalog?

"Well, you have to figure out what your community is, what it wants," Varscsak said.

Leonard Flack and his wife, Zora, both of Sun City, browse through the books at the Sun City Branch Library. The Maricopa County branch has scrapped the Dewey decimal system in favor of categorizing books and other media using keywords.

More on this topic

Maricopa County libraries by the numbers

• 18 Number of system branches, including the new White Tank Branch Library, which will be completed in 2010.